Baltimore judge holds Maryland health officials in contempt and orders new hospital beds by year-end
In a 42-page order issued on a Thursday in late September 2017, Rasin found that acting Health Secretary Dennis Schrader and his top staff had not followed court orders to move criminal defendants into state psychiatric hospitals, in some cases leaving them in jail for weeks. She called the evaluation and treatment system for mentally ill defendants "in a shambles," said the department's waitlist figures amounted to a shell game, and noted that a 2012 consultant had urged a large increase in hospital beds that never came.
To lift the contempt finding, the department had to fully staff 20 recently added beds at Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center, and open and staff 20 more beds in a new admissions unit at Perkins and 20 in a new admissions unit at Spring Grove Hospital Center, all by the end of December. Schrader disputed the ruling and pointed to plans to add 95 psychiatric beds. A public defender who represented the waiting defendants called the order a good start if the state complied.
Source: Judge holds Maryland officials in contempt, orders them to open dozens of psychiatric beds — The Baltimore Sun, by Pamela Wood
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